


Drifting

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Pacific Rim AU, Rumbelle - Freeform, Sci-Fi AU, drift compatible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-15 19:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8069740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: A Pacific Rim AU. Years after Rum Gold quit the Jaeger programme, he is sought out by an old friend and colleague for one last ditch attempt to close the breach and defeat the Kaiju once and for all. He needs to find a new drift compatible partner, but when he meets analyst Belle French, he wonders if the process might be easier than he thought. Rumbelle with bonus Sea Devil.





	1. Chapter 1

“Well, you’re the last person I’d ever expect to see here.”

Mal raised an eyebrow. “Is your self-worth really that low, Gold?”

Gold just looked at her, his gaze withering as he straightened from his position holding back the dog who had begun to bark ferociously on hearing the helicopter arrive.

“Why are you here, Mal?” he asked coolly.

“Why do you think, Gold?”

Gold shook his head. “No. When I quit, I told you that nothing could convince me to get back in a Jaeger again. That hasn’t changed.”

“No, but our circumstances have.”

Gold had to admire Mal’s patience with him. Back in the day they’d have already resorted to sniping and sarcasm by now.

“I thought that the Jaeger programme was being decommissioned. Because the coastal wall that the Kaiju broke through two days ago is supposed to be impenetrable and solve all our problems. Is that not the case?”

Mal rolled her eyes, her arms still folded. At least the helicopter blades had stopped now and they could both hear themselves think.

“Yes. We’re being decommissioned because all our funding’s been sunk into the most useless wall ever to use up the world’s steel supply. We’re making a last stand before they close us down completely. I need every pilot I can get my hands on. And that includes you.”

Gold spread his hands. “Where are we, Mal?”

Mal bent to pet the dog who had wandered over on recognising an old friend, and answered Gold without looking up at him.

“Scotland.”

“And is Scotland part of the Pacific Rim?”

“No.”

“Exactly. I left the Rim five years ago and I’m not going back. Come on, Chip, you little traitor.”

He turned to go back into the cabin – he would admit to being impressed that Mal had managed to track him down after he’d spent so long trying to stay off the books – and the dog gave a sharp bark, bounding away from Mal and making to follow him.

“You really think you’ll be safe here?” Mal called after him. “The attacks are getting closer and closer together. The breach is stabilising. Soon we’ll be seeing double events. Then triple. And then they’ll only get worse until there’s a Kaiju landing every two and a half minutes. You really think they’ll stay within the Pacific Rim? You really think you’ll be safe out here in the murky North Atlantic? Come on, Gold. All oceans connect.”

Gold sighed and turned back to her, Chip looking up at him with a whine. It couldn’t be denied. With the attacks coming so frequently, soon nowhere in the world would be safe.

“You know I can’t pilot the new Mark Fours and Fives,” he said.

“You won’t have to.” Mal gave a small smile for the first time since she landed. “I need every Jaeger I can get as well as every pilot.”

Gold’s blood ran cold in his veins.

“Mal, tell me that you didn’t.”

“She was the only Mark Three in a fixable condition,” Mal snapped, her smile dropping. “So we dragged her out of the Alaska junkyard and fitted her out with all mod-cons.”

“Mal, I can’t get back into _Spindle_ ,” Gold pleaded.

“We don’t have any other choice,” Mal said softly. “ _Spindle Imp_ is one of the few workable Jaegers left. We need her active. You’re the only Mark Three pilot left, and no-one knows _Spindle_ like you do.”

“I piloted her solo, I should know her better than anyone,” Gold spat. “So you’ve found my Jaeger and you’ve found me. What about a co-pilot? I may have gone solo once but I’m not doing it again.”

“We’ll find you a new co-pilot.”

“Really. You’ll find someone who can learn a Mark Three and with whom I can drift as well as my son?”

“No, of course not!” Mal exclaimed. “No-one can replace Bae and I’m not trying to! But we will find someone you can drift with. No, not as well as with Bae, you’ll never drift with anyone as well as you drifted with him, but he is not your only drift compatible out there!”

Gold felt sorry for Mal in a way. She’d dedicated everything she had to the Jaeger programme and now all her hard work was being thrown away over a wall not yet complete that had already proved ineffective for its purpose. She’d been a good friend over the years; she hadn’t said anything when he’d quit the programme, when he’d quit on her. And, well, it wasn’t exactly as if he had anything else to live for. Perhaps that was what he’d been waiting for unconsciously when he’d come out here after losing Bae. Just sitting quietly up here in the North Atlantic, waiting for the Kaiju to find him. He gave a long sigh. He’d always sworn never to set foot in a Jaeger again, but there again…

“You realise that even if we find someone I’m compatible with, _Spindle_ will only have half a right leg?” His fingers flexed on the handle of his cane and he shifted his weight to take the pressure off his mangled ankle, never properly healed after Alaska.

Mal nodded. “We’ve built some safeguards into her just in case, and your co-pilot will be aware.”

There was a long pause.

“So, are you coming?” she continued.

Gold looked out over the choppy sea, wondering how long it would be before he saw some great hulking beast rising out of the depths to lay waste to his homeland.

“Come on, Chip,” he said to the collie beside him. “We’re going on a trip.”

Mal smiled. “Good. There are some people back at base who will be very pleased to see you.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t think of anyone who would possibly be pleased to see him: one of the best pilots in the programme who made one simple error of judgment, losing him his son and his nerve and seeing him leave the project under a cloud.

X

“Welcome to Hong Kong.”

The helicopter had touched down on the largest Jaeger command centre Gold had ever seen, and he was still getting his bearings and coaxing a disorientated Chip to jump out of the chopper when he heard a familiar voice coming towards him.

“Rum Gold. Yours is a face I never thought I’d see again.”

He looked up to see Ursula standing there, her arms folded and a sly grin on her face.

“Long time no see,” Gold agreed. “I thought that you and Ella had retired.”

So this was who Mal had meant when she said that there were people who would be pleased to see him. He was pleased to see Ursula, too.

“You know what Mal says. She needs every pilot she can get her hands on, even if it means dragging some of us out of our retirement homes. Where did she dig you up, though? No-one’s been able to get in touch with you for years, and it’s not been for want of trying.”

“He didn’t exactly make it easy,” Mal muttered as she got out of the helicopter.

“Well, the gang’s all here,” Ursula said. “It’ll be just like old times.”

It wouldn’t be exactly like old times, Gold thought darkly. There had been five of them then, including Mal, and now there were four. He remembered the mess hall back at base, Bae watching Ella and Ursula’s antics with a smile whilst Gold and Mal looked on in despair. He shook the memory away, unwilling to think about it now, when he had to keep it together to prove to these people that he hadn’t lost his touch.

The sound of running footsteps and a cry of “Chip!” heralded Ella’s arrival on the scene. She ran over to the helicopter and, completely ignoring Gold, crouched down to pet Chip, scratching her behind the ears and kissing her wet nose.

“Who’s a good girl, Chip? Who’s a good girl? Have you missed your Auntie Ellie, Chip? Auntie Ellie’s missed you, you gorgeous girl.”

The collie barked and licked Ella’s face, and Gold snorted.

“Good to know that Ella’s priorities haven’t changed,” he murmured. Mal smiled.

“I’ve got to get back inside,” she said. “We’re expecting the breach to open again within the next forty-eight hours and we have to be prepared. I’ll leave you with the incredibly capable Miss French; she and Ursula can give you the grand tour. Ella can keep entertaining Chip.”

“Hi Gold,” Ella waved distractedly from the ground without looking up, still smothering Chip in kisses and cuddles.

Gold turned to see the diminutive Miss French standing next to him. In all the commotion of his reunion with Ursula and Ella he hadn’t noticed her approach.

“Welcome to the Shatterdome, Mr Gold,” she said, holding out a hand. Gold hooked his cane into the crook of his elbow in order to shake. Australian. She’d have lived on the Pacific Rim for most of her life. He wondered how old she had been when the Kaiju first came. She didn’t look more than thirty. “It’s an honour to have you here.”

Gold raised an eyebrow. “It’s all right, Miss French. There’s no need to be polite, no-one else is going to be.”

Miss French gave a soft, slightly nervous laugh. “I wasn’t just being polite, Mr Gold,” she said. “I watched you in Alaska five years ago. I’m pleased to have someone of your skill on board.” She paused. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Gold nodded his acknowledgement but said nothing, and Miss French indicated the main doors into the compound.

“Shall we?”

Ursula came with them; Ella was still busy catching up with Chip.

“We used to run thirty Jaegers from here,” Miss French said as they entered the main hangar. “Now we’re down to five.”

Gold looked up at a familiar Mark Four Jaeger, silver with green and blue details and a pair of stylised horns hiding flame throwers on its head.

“You’ll know _Sea Devil_ of course,” Miss French said. Ursula sighed fondly.

“She’s got a few more dents now but she’s still as feisty as ever,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. Mal knows that Ella and I are the only ones who can handle her kick.”

They moved on towards a bright red Mark Five, gleaming and new but still showing some signs of battle damage.

“ _Red Cricket_ ,” Miss French announced. “Piloted by a husband and wife team, Ruby and Archie Hopper, they’ve just arrived from the San Francisco base: the only California Jaeger left. Not as strong or as fast as some of the other Mark Fives, but it can fly, which is always a bonus.”

“Coming through! Coming through! Almost live specimens!”

Miss French sighed and stepped neatly to the side as a man carrying a plastic bucket of what could only be Kaiju guts ran past. He tipped his hat – it looked like a strange contraption built onto a top hat – as he passed Miss French, Gold and Ursula, and disappeared further into the compound. Gold glanced at Miss French and raised an eyebrow.

“I’m assuming that there’s a reason for the hat?” he said. The younger woman nodded with another pained sigh.

“That was Jefferson, our one-man science department,” she replied. “He decided it would be a good idea to try and drift with a Kaiju’s hindbrain he salvaged from the last attack on Hong Kong. He discovered some very useful information that helps us to predict the attacks, but unfortunately he also discovered that they share a hive mind and that now includes him. The hat stops the Kaiju making a beeline for the Shatterdome every time they surface. He made it into a top hat because he figured that if it was going to have to wear an anti-alien hat all the time, he might as well look stylish whilst he was doing it.” She shook her head in despair and indicated further into the compound towards the other Jaeger bays. “Shall we move on?”

They passed a battle-scarred blue Mark Four; Gold recognised it from the TV.

“ _Stitch_ ,” he said. “Hawaii Station.”

Miss French nodded. “Sisters Nani and Lilo Pelekai. Twelve kills since they started, one of the most successful teams we’ve ever had, as well as the youngest.”

“Oh,” Ursula muttered behind them. “Here comes trouble.”

The final Jaeger bay next to the conspicuously empty one that would house _Spindle Imp_ was bustling into life as the giant robot, a green and camo Mark Five, was winched back inside. The pilots were coming towards them, a tall dark-haired man and a tiny, elfin blonde woman.

“ _Finding Neverland_ ,” Miss French said. “Biggest and most powerful Mark Five ever built. Killian Jones and Tink Bell. New Zealand Station.”

Killian and Tink were still heading towards them, receiving the praise and cheers of the ground crew, and they stopped when they reached Gold.

“Well, well, well,” Killian said. “They really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Where did they drag you up from, Grandpa?”

Gold didn’t react and simply looked Killian up and down, sizing him up. He looked well-built, but Gold didn’t know how much of that bulk was drive suit. He’d expected worse insults, the words were all the same to him.

Tink hit her partner’s arm angrily.

“Show some fucking respect,” she hissed. “That’s Rum Gold. He took down a Level Three Kaiju solo. When you’ve done that, then you can start insulting him on first meeting.” She turned to Gold, holding out a hand. “Tink Bell, pleased to meet you. I apologise for my blockhead of a partner.”

Killian just sneered coldly and Miss French ushered Gold onwards – Ursula had been hailed by one of the technicians working on _Sea Devil_ and took her leave of them.

“You’d never think they were drift compatible when you see them bicker,” Miss French said lightly, glancing over her shoulder at Tink and Killian, still arguing. “But that’s by the by. Would you like to see _Spindle Imp_?” she asked Gold. He nodded, and Miss French led him through into the heart of the compound.

She was just as he remembered her from her heyday, bright and polished, not a line or wire out of place. He could see the sleek new weapons arrays on her hands and shoulders, and the steady glow of a much more powerful nuclear reactor core in her chest, but she was still his _Spindle Imp_.

“She’s very beautiful,” Miss French said beside him. “I always liked the Mark Threes the best. There was an ease to them, a simplicity. They were the quickest and most agile.” She paused. “Then of course, it became a question of raw power outstripping everything else as the Level Three and Four Kaiju began to surface, and so the Mark Fours and Fives were launched.”

Gold turned to her.

“You talk like a pilot.”

Miss French shook her head. “No.”

That was all she said on the subject, and Gold had to wonder. She didn’t just talk like a pilot. She talked like Bae had, with the same passion in her words that his son had always shown. He saw the Jaegers as things of beauty, wonders in their own right rather than a means to an end. Bae had had a respect for the technology, one that he shared with his father and that Miss French also shared.

“Well, I just hope that my co-pilot thinks in the same way that you do, Miss French,” he said.

“I’m sure they will. Mal has hand-picked the candidates herself. We figured she was the best person for the job; she knew you best when you were still piloting. We’ll find someone you’re drift compatible with.”

Gold nodded. He was almost convinced that he already had.

It was a ridiculous thought. He’d only known her ten minutes, they couldn’t be drift compatible. All the same… Once again he found himself thinking about Bae. That was different. Bae was his son, of course they were compatible. He didn’t even know Miss French’s first name.

“Belle,” she said out of the blue.

“Pardon?”

“You can call me Belle,” she said. “I prefer it to being ‘Miss French’ all the time.”

Gold nodded. “Just Gold,” he said. “No need for the mister.”

They continued to look out from the gantry at _Spindle Imp_ for a while, and Gold let out a long sigh. Bae would have loved to have seen her like this in all her glory. From the moment the first Jaegers had been built and gone into battle, Bae knew that was what he wanted to do with his life. Gold had only got involved with the project by accident – he was an engineer and they needed as many engineers as they could get to build these intricate behemoths – and somehow, when Bae had joined the programme on turning eighteen, they had ended up in the pilot scheme together. He still wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but he couldn’t deny that they’d made a wonderful team.

Until Alaska, of course.

“It’ll be strange piloting her again without Bae,” he murmured.

Belle reached across and touched the hand that gripped his cane gently.

“You can do it,” she said. “We have faith in you.”

Gold looked down at her small hand on his, and he was surprised with how comfortable he was with the contact. He had never been a tactile person, even when Bae had still been alive, but Belle’s touch just felt right somehow.

“I’ll show you to your room now,” she said. “Unless you’d like to stay here a bit longer? Mal thought you might want some rest, it’s been a long day for you. She’s getting the co-pilot candidates ready but it’s up to you how you want to test them.” She glanced across at _Spindle_. “It’s your Jaeger, after all.”

She took her hand away from his and Gold found himself missing her reassuring touch. She had faith in him, she’d said. He only wished that he still had faith in himself.

He took one final long look at _Spindle_ before following Belle out of the work bay and into the living quarters of the compound. He thought he knew how he was going to find his co-pilot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is interested, [this is my mental image of Gold's dog Chip](http://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.prod.vetstreet.com/8d/6e4090c75711e0a5640050568d6ceb/file/Border-Collie-1-645mk062411.jpg).

The candidates that Mal had picked were all perfectly competent young men and women with excellent track records in the simulators, but Gold could already tell, sitting on the gantry with his cane hooked over the rail beside him, that they were not his cup of tea. None of them would be compatible. Ursula had once said that you just _knew_ if you were drift compatible with someone. You felt the connection even before the neural bridge had been made. She had felt it with Ella, and she felt it with her cousin Ariel, although Ariel was no pilot.

Gold was going to have to concede that the only person he had felt a connection with so far was the sweet and calmly efficient Belle French. He had yet to find out what her real role in the Shatterdome was, but she seemed to be Mal’s personal assistant and chief delegator, and she appeared to be happy in that role, always popping up here, there and everywhere delivering messages and making sure that things got done on time and in the right place.

“Any joy?”

He turned to find the object of his thoughts standing at the entrance to the work bay behind him, and he shook his head. She came over and sat down beside him, swinging her legs over the edge of the gantry.

“She’s ready to drop,” Belle said, nodding towards _Spindle Imp_. “The engineers declared her fit for action half an hour ago. Mal doesn’t want to risk her yet though. You’ll probably be running point for _Stitch_ and _Neverland_ when they go to seal the breach. We just have to wait for it to stabilise enough.” She sighed. “Unfortunately that means we’ll have to weather a few more Kaiju first.”

Gold nodded and continued to stare at his Jaeger for a long time before turning to Belle. She was also looking at the giant robot and did not show any signs of meeting his eyes.

“What do you see when you look at her?” he said.

“Sorry?” Belle glanced across at him, her eyes questioning.

“When you look at _Spindle_ , what do you see?”

It was the same question that he had asked all of the co-pilot candidates that Mal had selected for him. He was in no state to test their combat abilities, not until he was inside the Jaeger itself with braces in place for his balance. So for now, he would have to test his potential drift partners on their minds alone.

So far, no-one had given him a satisfactory answer. He was not quite sure what a satisfactory answer was, but he knew that he’d know it when he heard it, and he hadn’t heard it yet. It was a test of sorts, he thought. Belle was the only person he felt had even a remote chance of being compatible with, and if she gave him an answer he was looking for, then he would go to Mal and ask her to take Belle from whatever job she was doing and put her in _Spindle_ with him there and then.

“I see pain,” Belle said after a while, looking out at the Jaeger again. Gold raised an eyebrow.

“Go on.”

“I see pain, and sacrifice, and loss. I can see some of the scars from Alaska even though we’ve painted over them and buffed them out as best we could. I can see that she has a past, a story, a personality of her own. I can see how much of your life is intertwined with her, and I can see that it’s going to be a hard step to get back inside her and pick up where you left off. But I can see triumph as well. She was left for scrap, washed up, but now she’s back and she’s better than ever. She’s won against all the odds.”

Gold smiled. Oh yes, they were drift compatible. If he had known it before then he was sure of it now. As Belle glanced over at him again, a small smile playing over her mouth, he knew that she felt it too.

“Belle,” he began, “do you think we’re compatible, you and I?”

Belle’s smile faded and she turned away.

“Yes,” she said eventually. “Yes, I felt it the moment we first set foot in this bay, when I saw the way you looked at _Spindle_. But it can’t work.”

Gold looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

“Are you a pilot?” he asked plainly. He had looked up her simulator record on the off-chance. Her curt response to his earlier remark of her thinking like one had made him wonder. The results were impressive.

Belle opened her mouth, and for a moment, Gold could see the lie formulating in her mind, but then she shook her head as she finally responded.

“I was,” she said quietly. “But not anymore. Even if I wanted to…” She paused then, and Gold thought that perhaps she did want to after all, but he didn’t press the point. “…Mal would never allow it.”

“Why not?” he asked. “I thought Mal needed all the pilots she could get her hands on.”

Belle’s face had become weary, and she looked over at _Spindle_ instead of at him.

“I’m dangerous,” she said shortly.

“Everything about our situation is dangerous,” Gold pointed out.

Belle shot him a sharp look.

“The last time I tried to drift with someone, I almost blew up the test bay and everyone in it,” she snapped. “They had to shut down the entire control centre to kill the Jaeger in time. So there’s no point in asking Mal to make me your co-pilot. It just won’t work. I can’t do it.”

She got up off the gantry and left _Spindle_ ’s bay just as the winches and hydraulics began to move the Jaeger itself into its proper position ready to drop. Gold watched her go. There was something very unusual about Miss French, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it, but he appreciated that perhaps going after her was not the best of ideas.

So she had been a pilot once. And if she had been a pilot, then she must have had a co-pilot.

A co-pilot that, like Gold, she no longer had.

Gold had never even tried drifting with someone other than Bae since his son’s death. He’d only ever tried with someone other than Bae once, and that was with Mal at the very start of the Jaeger programme, when they were still trialling the idea of the neural bridge. They weren’t compatible and it hadn’t worked.

For a moment, he was worried. What if the same thing happened to him when he tried to drift with someone who wasn’t Bae? Surely, if Mal had witnessed Belle’s accident and would no longer let her drift because of it, she had to be aware of the possibility of it occurring a second time.

He heaved himself upright, grabbed his cane and went in search of Mal, almost tripping over Jefferson and another tank of Kaiju parts on his way past. Gold couldn’t understand why the man was in such a hurry all the time. True, they were standing almost literally on the edge of a precipice, but almost knocking people out with semi-decomposed Kaiju brains didn’t seem to be the most judicious use of his time. Still pondering, he reached Mal’s office and knocked.

“Enter.”

He went in and closed the bulkhead door behind him. Mal was leaning over her desk, looking at paperwork. If he’d been Ella, he’d have gone over and pinched her backside. He was not Ella, though, so he simply stood by and waited for her to finish whatever it was she was doing and turn to him.

“Gold,” she said eventually. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve chosen my co-pilot,” he announced.

“Excellent. Who is it?”

“Belle French.”

Mal’s face fell. “I had feared that you two might be compatible.” She sighed. “I’m sorry Gold. It’s not going to happen. You need to choose someone else.”

“Why not Belle? She’s got a great simulation record, she knows the mechanics, and no-one else you’ve offered me shows any sign of a connection.”

Mal shook her head. “She’s too inexperienced.”

“Mal, none of the candidates you’ve given me have real life drifting or piloting experience at all. Belle has.”

“Not _enough_ ,” Mal said. “You either want someone who’s been drifting for years or someone who hasn’t done it at all, a clean slate if you will. Belle’s too inexperienced. She only piloted one drop, and it was years ago. The last time she tried to drift after that…”

“She almost blew up the test bay, yes, I know,” Gold snapped. “How do you know I won’t do the same? It’s my first drift in five years, my first drift with someone new, and you do remember, I suppose, that the last time I was connected to someone _they died inside my fucking head!_ ”

Mal sat down heavily on the edge of her desk, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t know that you won’t do that,” she said with a sigh, and she ran her hand through her mass of curly hair before looking Gold straight in the eye. “But I know you as a pilot. I know you’ve got the control and mental strength to do this again. I’ve seen you fly solo. I know you can do it. Belle’s too untested.”

Gold nodded, digesting the information, and there was silence in the room for a long time.

“You know, I think that might be the entire problem,” he said. “It’s going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. You won’t try her out because you’re scared of what will happen, so if you do ever try her out, she’s going to be so nervy that the worst will, inevitably, happen.” He paused, then sighed. “Mal, we both know she’s the only one on this godforsaken lump of rock I’m remotely compatible with. We both know she has the skill, once she’s in the drift. Please let me test with her.”

Mal groaned, leaning back against the desk and staring up at the ceiling.

“Fine,” she said. “I suppose I was already resigned to the fact. But you’re going to be the one to convince her to get in that Jaeger with you.”

“I told you,” Gold said. “You’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Really, you should be the one telling her. You were the one to convince her that she couldn’t do it, after all.”

Mal just gave him a look. The “I’m in charge here” look.

“Maybe, before your minds connect in the drift, you ought to start thinking about why she might have problems in the first place.”

Gold already knew why. He knew that she’d lost someone.

Maybe he could help her see past that, though, like the way she had helped him see past the traumas of _Spindle_ ’s past and what had happened on her last drop earlier. They were compatible, after all. Perhaps it would be better coming from him rather than Mal.

X

Belle was in her room; Gold knocked politely and waited, listening to her moving around inside before opening the door and peering around it. She opened it a little wider on seeing who her visitor was, and she gestured for him to come in before bending to pet Chip, who followed him in silently and made herself comfortable under the sink.

“I spoke to Mal,” he said. “She’d already gathered that we’re drift compatible and she’s willing to let you co-pilot _Spindle_. The only question that remains is whether you want to.”

Belle sat down on her bunk, drawing her knees up to her chest.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just keep thinking about what happened last time I was in a Jaeger.”

“If we’re connected in the drift, I can help you through whatever it is that holds you back,” Gold said. “The stronger the connection, the better I can do that. And it’s best to do that here, rather than out in the field with a Kaiju on our back.”

“I don’t know,” Belle repeated. “It’s been so long.”

Gold came and sat beside her, stretching out his bad ankle in front of him.

“What happened?” he asked softly. “Who did you lose?”

Belle shook her head.

“No-one.”

“What happened to your first co-pilot?”

“She died. But not in the Jaeger.” She looked up at him and wiped away her pooled tears on her sleeve. She opened her mouth a couple of times as if she wanted to say something more, but her courage failed her and she rested her chin on top of her knees.

“My mother,” she said eventually. “She piloted Mark Ones with her sister. They were pulled out of the programme when they realised the radiation leakage problems with the Mark Ones, but it was too late. Aunt Meg went quickly, but my mum, she held on. She was a fighter. She was the reason I joined the programme. I was so proud of her, and I wanted to be like her.”

Belle paused.

“I’d just finished my training when there was an attack on Sydney. It was the first Level Four Kaiju to come through the breach and it was… well…”

“Devastating doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Gold finished for her. He’d heard of the terrible Sydney attack, but he’d been too busy mourning Bae’s loss to pay much attention to it.

Belle nodded.

“The experienced Jaeger pilots couldn’t stop it. They needed to launch another one as backup. I was the only pilot ready, but I didn’t have a co-pilot. I hadn’t found anyone compatible yet. The only person I knew I would be able to drift with was my mum. She was the only person I ever had a strong enough connection with. Until you.”

She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring into space, reliving her first and only drop.

“They called Mum in to co-pilot with me. I knew it would kill her, the strain would be too much and even the base radiation would make her sick. But she didn’t hesitate. The world needed saving and she was damn well going to save it, no matter the cost. We killed the Kaiju. Mum didn’t come home after the drop, she went straight into the hospital. She died two weeks later.”

Finally she looked over at Gold.

“That’s what happened. That’s why I can’t drift. I just can’t stop thinking about that first time. It felt so good, knowing that what I was doing would save so many lives, but at the same time, in that moment I felt that it wasn’t worth it, because no matter how many lives I saved, I knew that they wouldn’t bring back my mum. I almost wanted us to lose, in a way. I got stuck on that, on that feeling. I couldn’t let it go. I was back there facing down a Level Four Kaiju knowing that even if we killed it, it would have killed my mum.” She gave a snort of melancholy laughter. “Trust me, you don’t want to be inside my head.”

Gold gave a soft laugh. 

"I can't think of anyone who would want to be inside mine," he said. "Bae and I were still connected when he died. I could feel it. I felt the moment he passed, the moment he suddenly wasn’t in my head anymore. And whoever I drift with now, they'll feel that too. I can't believe that Mal would put that in the job description when she was looking for potential drift candidates. 'By the way, you might have to take the entire right leg at any time without warning and also relive someone you've never met dying in your head.' I doubt she'd have had any applicants."

Belle turned to look at him, still hugging her knees. "I don't know, we're pretty desperate."

They fell into silence for a while

"What happened to your potential co-pilot from your second drift?" Gold asked eventually. 

Belle shook her head. 

"Will. He was really good about the whole thing, never once blamed me for nearly getting him blown up. He found another co-pilot, Anastasia. They both died in _White Rabbit_ last year." She sighed. "It's strange. I never really knew him all that well, but we were drift compatible, and there's always a connection there, you know? Even if you never actually drift with them, you still feel that connection, and you feel it more acutely when they're not there."

Gold knew. He could feel that connection with Belle already. 

"There are so few of us left," she continued, her voice melancholy. "Five Jaegers. Just a handful of pilots. Even less who are compatible enough to actually work a Jaeger together. What if this is a fight we're destined to lose? Jefferson says that the Kaiju are colonists. We've created the perfect conditions on the planet for them simply by dint of us evolving. You know all the environment protests before the Kaiju arrived, warning everyone that we were killing the planet? I bet they never realised just how literal that would prove to be."

They fell into silence for a while. 

"Are you scared?" Belle asked presently. Her head was on one side, watching him with a guarded expression. "After everything that happened the last time you were in _Spindle_ , are you scared of getting back in her?"

"No," Gold replied, because if he admitted fear to Belle he would never get her on board. "No, I'm not scared.” As he said the words, he realised that he actually wasn’t. Not anymore. Not in the way he had been when Mal had first appeared, when he had first set foot on the base. “When Mal first told me that she'd got _Spindle_ back online and was fixing her up, the first thing that went through my head was just blind panic, I’ll admit. I thought that the moment I got back in that harness, it would all come flooding back, and I'd freeze, or get lost in my memories, or almost blow up the test bay." In spite of herself, Belle gave a giggling snort. "But now that I'm back here, with all the noise and the smells and the hydraulic fluid in the air, I'm not so worried. It feels... I suppose it feels more like home than Scotland's done these past few years. It feels _right_ , even without Bae. I still have no idea how I'll react when I get into _Spindle_ , though. If Mal's worried about you blowing things up whilst chasing the rabbit, I don't know why she thinks I'll be any safer."

"You're more experienced," Belle said. 

"That's what Mal said, but I'm not really. All my experience came before I lost Bae. My mind's changed since then. I've changed."

"I think you can do it." There was a quiet, but undoubtedly fierce, determination in Belle's voice. "With the right person to pull you through."

"I can't think of a better fit than you," Gold said. 

Belle sighed. "I... I'm scared, Gold. What if I get stuck again?”

“What if I get stuck as well?” Gold pointed out.

“We’re both as risky as each other.” Belle laughed weakly. “Maybe that’s why Mal really didn’t want us to be compatible.”

“And yet the fact remains that we are.” Gold reached out tentatively towards Belle’s hand where she was still grasping her knees, and touched her knuckles gently like she had done earlier. She didn’t pull away, and just looked at him with brilliant blue eyes.

They stayed like that for a long time, until Belle uncurled her other arm from around her knees and placed her hand on top of his.

“Do you trust me?” she asked. “I mean, we only met this morning.”

Gold nodded slowly. “I never trust anyone. But I understand you. And you understand me. Our experiences aren’t the same but we share common ground. I trust you with _Spindle_. I trust the way you see her. So yes. I’ll trust you in the drift.”

Belle gave a small smile. “I trust you.”

“Are we on, then?” Gold asked.

Belle nodded.

“Yeah. We’re on.”

Chip had got up from her spot beneath the sink and was whining at the door, and Gold pulled himself to his feet.

“I’d best take her outside; then I’ll tell Mal we’re ready for a test run, if you’re agreeable?”

Belle smiled as he opened the door and led Chip outside.

“I’ll get the drive suits.”


	3. Chapter 3

“They’ll be fine, Mal.”

Mal sighed heavily, her arms folded. Putting someone as volatile as Belle had proved to be into the drift with someone as potentially volatile as Gold was not what she would call a good idea, but it was the only choice she had. There was no telling how Gold would react to being back in the drift with someone other than Bae until he was in the drift, and there was no way of getting him into the drift without a co-pilot.

“I hope you’re right, Ella,” she muttered.

“Ella’s always right, Mal. I’ve spent long enough inside her head to know these things.”

Ella and Ursula were perched on the desk either side of Graham, the Operations tech who’d overseen every Jaeger drop out of the Shatterdome since its inception, and Ella leaned over the man’s head to plant a kiss on her partner.

“Thank you darling. I’m glad someone appreciates my natural abilities.”

Unfazed by their presence, Graham raised an eyebrow. “If there was one thing I learned when I was overseeing you before you came here, it was that no matter how outrageous you two decide to be, you always come through, my thoughts on the matter notwithstanding.”

“I swear you two caused me more grey hairs than the entire Kaiju war has,” Mal muttered. She stopped her pacing up and down the control centre and leaned over to speak into the mic.

“ _Spindle Imp_ this is control. Are you ready?”

Inside the Jaeger cockpit, Gold didn’t think that he would ever be ready. It was overwhelming being back, but at the same time, it didn’t feel at all strange. The weighting of the harness wasn’t the same as how he remembered; the rollers under his feet felt uneven, but he knew that was to compensate for his ankle. Still, it wasn’t so different to be unrecognisable, and it almost felt like home. He glanced over at Belle, who nodded, her eyes wide and a little scared behind her face plate.

“Control, this is _Spindle Imp_ , we’re ready.”

Mal gave a tight smile.

“Initiating neural handshake now.”

This was it, the moment of truth for all of them. She knew that Gold and Belle were drift compatible and it would have been foolish to try Gold with anyone else when the answer was right there in front of her all the time, but still. Belle’s track record was not exactly stellar when it came to drifting tests, and Gold, well, she had no idea how he would react. All she could do was go off his previous performance and her own faith in his stoicism.

“Looking stable, Boss,” Graham said, watching the monitors closely. “Both hemispheres online.”

“Let’s hope to God they stay that way,” Mal muttered.

Drifting was an experience that it was impossible to get used to. Gold gasped as the neural bridge was connected, and he was plunged into a flood of memories, some his own, and some Belle’s. In that first moment though, in the initial drift, it was impossible to tell whose memories were whose, their minds touching each other so intimately that the sheer volume of information was overwhelming. He saw Bae as a kid, he saw Belle’s mother and Aunt Meg in a Mark One, he saw Ella and Mal and Ursula drinking and laughing and couldn’t tell if that was Belle’s memory of them or his. He saw Will smiling and hugging him and telling him it was fine, they weren’t dead, it was all ok. He was standing on Sydney Harbour bridge after it was rebuilt, he was having sex with Milah. There was no space in his mind to register embarrassment at that particular one. He let the memories rush over him, focussed only on the reinforced glass of _Spindle_ ’s cockpit. Don’t chase the rabbit. That was what they had always been told. Never cling to a memory, be it your own or someone else’s. Memories were transient, fleeting.

He was in a Mark Four in Sydney harbour, Belle’s mother beside him, and he felt the older woman’s pain and determination as if it was his own. He felt Belle’s frustration and confusion and overwhelming sadness.

“Let it pass,” he said to her, and he wasn’t sure if he’d said it aloud or only in his head. “Don’t chase it. Let it go.”

Beside him, Belle nodded, and the memory faded as quickly as it had come into his mind.

“ _Spindle, you’re at one hundred per cent,_ ” he heard Graham say. “ _Start synchronisation_.”

Gold pulled his right arm back to start the alignment process. Belle did the same, perfectly in unison. They’d done it. They were drifting. It was working. The memories were flowing easily now, there was nothing holding him back. They could do this. It was a powerful connection, that couldn’t be denied. It didn’t feel anything like it had done with Bae. No stronger or weaker, no more or less intense, just completely different.

The synchronisation was almost finished. With a sweep of his arm the weapons arrays came online.

The memories kept flowing. Belle was skinny-dipping in a lake and teasing her cousin about the crocodiles. He was running across the hills with Chip, running, running, running…

He was back in _Spindle Imp_ , but the pilot beside him was Bae, not Belle. He could feel Bae’s fear. He knew exactly when this was. Alaska, five years ago.

He tried to push the memory down, to let it go…

“It’s holding,” Graham said. “Neural handshake at one-hundred per cent; the sync’s running well.”

Mal let out a sigh of relief. They’d done it. She didn’t know why she’d doubted either of them, really, now that she was looking at the readings on Graham’s screen. It was one of the strongest connections she’d ever seen, almost comparable with Nani and Lilo who shared the optimum drift.

“ _Spindle_ , you’re looking good,” Graham said into the mic. “You can-”

He trailed off as a red alarm light flashed up on the screen.

“That doesn’t look promising,” Ursula said dryly.

“ _Spindle,_ you’re out of alignment,” Graham said into the mic calmly, then he switched it off and looked up at Mal, who raised an eyebrow.

“Who’s stuck?” she asked. “Can we pull them through it?”

Graham looked down at his screen and traced the brainwave patterns before shaking his head.

“They both stuck for a moment,” he said. “Gold’s back online but Belle’s gone.”

“Shit. Can you get the weapons arrays offline? I do not want a repeat of Belle and Will!”

“No, the sync was already completed; they have full control in there.”

“Can we pull her back out of the drift from here?” Mal pressed.

Graham shook his head.

“No, it’s risky enough as it is to try and manually pull someone out, but more than that, she’s not chasing her own memory.” He gestured to the simulated brainwave activity on the screen, at the lines wavering between the two hemispheres. “She’s chasing Gold’s…”

The noise inside the Jaeger was deafening, and Belle was stationary beside him, her eyes wide and staring and not seeing anything in front of her but the memory she was trapped in. His memory. His worst memory. He’d been stuck in it for just a second, and now Belle was stuck in it too, and he couldn’t move on unless she moved on with him.

“Belle!” he yelled. Christ, he was watching this all from her perspective, looking on at his past self as he charged towards the biggest Kaiju he’d ever seen at the time, with Bae by his side; he could feel his son’s fear as plainly as if it was his own but they kept going forwards, running and running with the plasma cannons charging and ready to swing, and they were about to meet the beast and…

“Belle!”

In his mind he reached out to touch her; even though he knew he wasn’t making contact in real life, that he was in his own harness unable to reach her, her shoulder felt so solid and real beneath his fingers.

She turned to him and he breathed a sigh of relief. She was responsive. If he could get through to her, he could get her to let go, get them out of this terrible memory.

“Belle, you’ve got to let it go, please! I’m sorry I got us stuck in here but please let go!”

Belle flinched slightly, like his voice was too loud in her head. He was probably screaming in real life.

Something jerked in the back of his head as he felt the moment they stumbled, the moment that had set everything else into motion.

He wished he could close his eyes, but even if he did so in real life, he would still be playing out this memory in his mind.

“Please, Belle!” he pleaded. “Please let go! The longer you stay in here the longer I have to stay in here too and I don’t want to relive this! Please, Belle, don’t make me go through this again!”

He was panicking, and he wasn’t helping. He was trying so hard not to cling to this memory that he was clinging to Belle’s mind instead, and that added strain would not allow her to move on and let this memory fall away.

There was an earsplitting shriek as _Spindle_ ’s cockpit was rent in two by the Kaiju’s claws, and Gold howled as he felt Bae’s mind leave his for the second time…

“Pull the plug!” Mal yelled. Ursula glanced out at the test bay. The Jaeger was stationary, its weapons online and ready but not armed. There was no sign of any imminent explosions, but the readings on Graham’s screens were going ballistic, red warning lights screaming at them from all areas. It was clear that both of them were floundering now, completely unable to get back into the present.

Graham didn’t move, staring intently at his readouts and typing frantically.

“Pull the plug!” Mal howled again. When she didn’t get any kind of response, she left her position leaning on the control panel with white knuckles and rushed round to the back of the console, making to grab the first cable she could.

“No!” Graham exclaimed. “You can’t do that, you might fry their brains!”

“Let them work it out,” Ursula agreed, trying to calm her old friend down and not betray the fear that she herself was feeling. “If it looks like it will get dangerous, by all means pull the plug, but if you don’t let them work it out then they’ll never get past this.”

“What if they never get past it now!” Mal exclaimed. “I can’t have them stuck in that drift forever!”

“They’ll get through it,” Ella said firmly. “You know Gold and you know Belle, and you know how strongly compatible they are. You’ve seen it yourself, before they got stuck. That sync and alignment was damn near perfect. It’s almost as good as mine and Ursula’s. They can pull each other through.”

Mal reluctantly nodded her agreement, but her hand remained on the main power cable to the console.

Inside the Jaeger cockpit, Gold was gasping for breath. It was not the first time that he had relived Bae’s death. He’d had more than enough nightmares after that horrific event, but this was different. Within dreams memory was distorted; events never played out the same way twice. It was more than simple recall and in a way that made it easier to bear. But this was something else, this perfect recall, as if he was watching on a cinema screen. The memory that he had tried so hard to keep locked down and never return to was once more happening around him in all its terrible and truthful detail.

“It’s just a memory,” Belle said beside him, although whether she was talking to him or to herself he didn’t know. “It can’t be changed.”

Gold nodded. His head was pounding with the strain of the drift and he could feel the jarring pain in his ankle. He wasn’t sure if that was memory or reality, but it grounded him.

“Let’s go,” Belle said. She was definitely speaking to him this time, determination colouring her words as her bright blue eyes looked into his, and he remembered the first time he had seen her and looked into those blue eyes.

And that was it. They were drifting again. The memories of Alaska fell away, back to _Spindle_ ’s repaired cockpit and the here and now. Gold turned to Belle in her harness beside him, and she gave him a nervous smile.

“We got through it,” she said.

“Yes, we did.”

The easy drift was back, the flood of memories a constant in the back of his mind, and Gold grinned.

“Time to show me what you’ve got, Miss French,” he said.

Belle returned his expression with one of her own.

“Don’t think I’ll make it easy on you because you’re out of practice,” she teased. Gold scoffed.

“Do you think I’ll make it easy on you because you’re a rookie?”

“I was hoping that perhaps we could come to an agreement?”

_Spindle_ ’s arms pulled back, the beginning of a move that Gold had used effectively so often with Bae, but instead of the full force of a double punch, there was a slicing motion, the chain on the Jaeger’s arms solidifying into blades and chopping neatly to decapitate the non-existent Kaiju in front of them. Gold’s experience and Belle’s young insight melding together into one deadly combination.

“I think we work rather well as a team, don’t you?” Belle asked as _Spindle_ took a step back, bracing for a counter attack.

“Indubitably,” Gold agreed.

Mal let out a sigh of relief as she saw _Spindle_ going through her sparring motions, completely in control. She could see the differences in style to Gold’s previous drifts. She could see where he and Belle were working together, and working together incredibly effectively at that. It was very different to the style that he’d had with Bae; sleeker almost, more refined. Behind her, she could hear Ursula, Ella and Graham exchanging high fives.

“You really need to have a little more faith, Mal,” Ursula said benignly. “They pulled each other through it.”

“Teamwork at its finest,” Ella agreed. “Just like us, darling.”

"Well done, _Spindle_ ," Graham said, the relief in his voice clear to hear. "You're back in alignment."

"And looking beautiful," Ella breathed as she watched the Jaeger go through its combat moves. "Have you ever seen anything like that?"

Ursula had to agree with her partner. There was something mesmerising in Spindle's sparring routine. She could pick out the moves that were Gold's, but there was something _more_ to them now. It was clear that Belle was a powerful pilot in her own right, and their work together was wonderful.

Mal gave a satisfied nod, but her face was still not completely at ease.

"When they're in alignment, they're excellent," she said calmly. "But we can't afford any freezes when the crucial moment comes. Can we be sure that they won't slip again?"

Ursula shrugged. "You can never be sure of that. There are always a few slips whenever you drift with someone new for the first couple of times. None of us are perfect. The more practice they get in the drift and in the field, the less likely it'll be to happen."

Mal sighed. "I know, you're right. I just... I just don't want to lose either of them if we can possibly help it."

Ella reached across and patted her old friend's arm.

"We won't lose them," she said sagely, but there was an undeniable melancholy tone in her voice when she spoke again. "They've both lost too much already to lose each other now."

Presently Gold's voice came over the radio from the Jaeger, the triumph in his words cutting through the sombre mood that had fallen in the control room.

_"Control, this is Spindle Imp. Alignment and combat tests successful. We are ready to drop. Disengaging now."_

"Roger that, _Spindle Imp_." Graham pressed a few buttons on the control panel to bring the Jaeger out of alignment gracefully and allow the two pilots to pull away from each other's minds. "Break the bridge whenever you're ready."

The brainwave activity on Graham's screen began to slowly separate into two distinct patterns once more, and Ella gave a smattering of polite applause.

The mood of victory, however, did not last long. From above them, a red warning light began flashing and a klaxon pierced through the buzzing of the monitors in the control room. Glancing up, Ursula saw that the countdown clock that timed the intervals between the breach openings had reset to zero. It was open again, and a Kaiju would be landing in a matter of moments.

Graham threw _Spindle_ 's monitoring onto a different screen and pulled up the maps of the breach, throwing his head in back in despair when he saw the dark shapes emerging from it.

"Shit," Mal said succinctly. "Double event. Jefferson thought that there'd be two next time." She leaned over the desk. "What level?"

"Still scanning; they've only just come through," Graham said. "Breach hasn't closed yet." He glanced over at Mal. "It might be time, you know."

Mal nodded. If the breach stayed open for long enough, they would be able to drop the nuke in and destroy it once and for all.

"Someone find Dr Milliner!" she yelled to the techs who had rushed into the room on hearing the klaxon; a large group of them dispersed and running footsteps could be heard all over the base.

"It's all happening so fast," Mal muttered grimly. "We've only just got _Spindle_ up and running, I was hoping to be able to have her sit out one attack whilst we get a battle plan, but if it's a double then we'll need all the mechs we can get on the ground."

Ursula and Ella looked at each other. "We'll suit up."

Mal nodded her assent and waved them away, still looking at the circling shapes on the screen. Graham was codenaming them.

" _Hammerhead_ and _Whiplash_ ," he said, indicating their body shapes. "That tail is going to be nasty."

"One for _Red Cricket_ , I think," Mal muttered with a dry smile.

The scan finished.

"And they're both level four. Brilliant." Graham groaned and leaned back in his seat. "At least they haven't set off yet."

"Spoke too soon." Mal watched the shapes begin to leave the area of the breach. "Shit, they're heading in our direction. Where the HELL is Jefferson?"

"Marshall Mallory!"

A young female voice came into the control room just as Gold's voice could be heard over the radio again.

_"I don't know what the hell's going on in there, but you're still transmitting to us."_

"Breach just opened," Mal said into the mic. "Get out and get up here as fast as you can."

_"Roger, Spindle Imp out."_

Mal turned to see the girl who had hailed her by rank. It was Grace, Jefferson's young daughter, and she was white as a sheet.

"Grace, where's your dad?" Mal asked.

"That's just it, Miss Mal, I think he's having some kind of fit..."

Mal pressed her hands over her face.

"If this is the reason the Kaiju are making a bee line for Hong Kong..." she muttered. "Lead the way, Grace."

The medical team had already reached Jefferson by the time Mal and Grace arrived, and although he was no longer shaking and writhing as Grace had described, his nose was still gushing blood.

His Anti-Kaiju Hat, Mal noticed with trepidation, was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm fine," he said nasally to the medic who was trying to patch him up. "Honestly, it's just a bit of blood."

Mal raised an eyebrow and crouched down in front of the scientist. It was obvious that he'd just been through the mill but she needed him and his possibly-now-fried brain right now.

"You ok, Jeff?"

He nodded.

"Breach is open again. I gather you know that already."

Jefferson nodded again.

"Connected with them again. Just a flash as the breach opened but it was enough to knock me out. I'd literally just taken my hat off for a second or two to scratch my head." He grabbed a new wad of tissue from the medic as the one he was holding against his nose soaked through. "They're coming here, aren't they?"

Mal nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Mal."

She shrugged. "Nothing we can do about it now, just go out and face them. What we need to know is how long the breach will be open for; do we have enough time to go for the big drop now? Are you in a fit state to run your algorithms?"

Jefferson nodded as much as he could with his head tipped back. "Grace can run them if I tell her what to press."

They got the doctor to his feet and helped him back up to the control room. Belle was waiting for them, her helmet off but still wearing her drive suit. Below them in the Jaeger bays, Mal could see the other pilots and technicians gathering. There was no sign of Gold. Already hampered by his limp, the drive suit restricted his mobility even further and it would take him a while to get out of _Spindle_ and into the hangar.

Thankfully Jefferson's nose was no longer gushing as he sat down at the nearest workstation, frantically typing in data from a battered notebook and matching it up to numbers that Graham was yelling at him from the main control panel.

"They're definitely heading this way, Mal," Graham said warily. "Both of them. We've got about four hours before they hit land."

"Then those are four hours that we'll have to use wisely," Mal said. "Jefferson, anything on that breach? Jefferson?"

The scientist didn't respond, staring in pale horror at his screen.

"Jeff!" Mal snapped.

"We've got enough time for the big drop," Jefferson said eventually. "The breach has stabilised. It's not going to close."

Mal nodded. "I sense a but."

"But I've just realised something. The breach only opens in the presence of Kaiju DNA."

"Yes, we've already established that from your first foray into their minds."

"Yes, but if the breach only opens in the presence of their DNA, and it's going to stay open for the foreseeable future, _how many more are going to come through_?"

Mal, Jefferson, Graham and Belle all exchanged a look, voicing a singular collective thought.

"Shit."


	4. Chapter 4

****You could have cut the atmosphere in the Jaeger hangar with a knife. All of the pilots and technical crew were gathered in the largest open space in roughly the centre of the hangar, at the feet of _Stitch_. Gold, already exhausted, leaned in the entrance to _Spindle Imp_ 's drop bay, unwilling to move more than necessary when it was likely that in a minute he'd have to get straight back into the Jaeger he'd just vacated. Mal was standing on a box in the middle, confirming the bad news that everyone had already guessed at when they saw the war clock stop, and putting in place a plan of attack. 

" _Neverland_ , you have the payload. _Stitch_ will provide cover. The Kaiju are currently headed towards Hong Kong, we need to intercept them before they reach the Shatterdome. With any luck, we can keep their attention focussed here and there'll be a clear route through for the payload. We're going to fly _Stitch_ and _Neverland_ in so that they don't cross paths with the Kaiju. _Red Cricket_ , follow the choppers and intercept if necessary, then fall back to the Shatterdome. _Sea Devil_ and _Spindle Imp_ , you'll drop here and defend the coast. Once the payload has been delivered, everyone falls back to the Shatterdome. We've only got one chance to get this right, people, so let's go!"

The technicians began to disperse quickly to get the Jaegers ready to drop, and the analysts raced back up to the control room. Above them, Gold could hear the cranes and hydraulics straining as they winched the warhead into place and attached it to _Neverland_ 's back. Soon the pilots were the only ones left in the hangar, checking over their Jaegers from the outside. Killian Jones caught Gold's eye. 

"Well, look who finally turned up to the party," he sneered. Gold grimaced as he shifted his stance to take the pressure off his ankle, and for a moment he wished he was back in the Jaeger harness just so that he didn't have to support all his own weight. Although the drift and the mental strain of piloting was impossible to get used to, he had also forgotten just how physically demanding it was and the bulkhead door felt like it was the only thing keeping him upright. "That's right, old man, you just stand there whilst the rest of us risk our necks trying to save the world."

"Killian!" Tink yelled. "We don't have time for this, for fuck's sake!" Her words had little effect, however, because Belle, her tiny stature only emphasised by the bulky lines of her drive suit, had strode across the hangar from _Spindle_ 's bay and without any kind of preamble hit Killian square in the nose.

"Argh! Jesus fucking Christ!" The taller man grabbed his face as his nose began to ooze.

“Enough!” Mal roared, racing back across the hangar from here she had been about to leave and return to the control room. “We’re in a dangerous enough position as it is without infighting! If it wasn’t for the fact we need every Jaeger in action I’d ground the both of you. Killian, I can't say I';m surprised but I'm still ashamed. Belle, I'm shocked. But be that as it may, we’ve got less than four hours till those Kaiju make land so suck it up and move out! I’ll deal with you two if we’re all still alive at the end of this.”

Gold didn’t think he’d ever seen Mal so incandescently furious as she was just then. He hadn’t seen Belle looking as mutinous either, but then he had only known her a day and was not in such a good position to judge. She came over to him, falling into a slow step beside him as he limped back towards _Spindle_ ’s cockpit.

“You know, you really shouldn’t rise to him,” he remarked. “I’ve been called worse.”

“How can you just stand there and take it?” Belle was scowling as she looked at him, her gaze boring into him, almost accusatory.

“Sticks and stones, Belle. There’s nothing to be gained from taking his bait. He wants a reaction. They all want a reaction, whoever’s needling you. It’s all they want. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

Belle gave a non-committal grunt and looked down at the scratched knuckles of her drive suit gauntlets. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.”

Gold chuckled. “Was it worth it?”

“Considering the bollocking I’ll get from Mal later…” Belle pondered. “Yeah, it was.”

“You’re very chivalrous,” Gold said, bowing to her slightly. “But sometimes you’ve just got to let it go.”

“But he’s so annoying! So superior and so antagonistic towards everyone all the time!”

“Yes. He’s also shortly going to be in control of a nuclear weapon, so let’s not get his back up too much just yet. You can hit him as much as you like after we stop this thing. I’ll cover for you.” He paused as they got back into _Spindle_ ’s cockpit and the techs began to help them get into the harnesses again. “Besides, you’ll find that these things tend to come back around to haunt them. Although remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Belle just grinned, but before she could reply there was a commotion at the airlock door into the cockpit. Gold twisted as much as he could in the harness to see Chip struggling against a technician, trying to get in. The brown and white collie was whining and scraping at the floor.

“Come here Chip.” Gold patted his thigh with the hand not harnessed up yet and Chip bounded towards him. He scratched behind her ears fondly. “Good girl. Be good for me whilst I’m gone, ok? Mal will take care of you like she always did.”

Chip looked up at him through doleful dark eyes, ears drooping. She knew that her master might not be coming back from this mission.

“Go on,” he said softly, giving her a final pet. “Go to Mal.”

The collie trudged out of the cockpit, tail between her legs, and Gold finished the harnessing process with a lump in his throat.

“Mal,” he said once the radio system was online.

 _“I’m here, Gold,”_ she replied. Despite her anger at Killian and Belle a few moments ago and the desperation of the situation they had found themselves in, she sounded calm and patient, like she always had when she was on the radio to him before a drop.

“Look after Chip for me.”

_“I always have.”_

Gold gave a nod of finality and looked over at Belle.

“Initiating neural bridge now.”

It was much easier the second time. Belle’s mind was familiar to him now. He knew the places to avoid, the memories to let go of as quickly as possible, and he knew the places that were safe to linger if he needed to. They synced up quickly and looked around at the rest of the Jaegers in the hangar. _Neverland_ had already been airlifted out and _Stitch_ was receiving the same treatment. Everyone else was ready to drop.

 _“Sea Devil coming online_ ,” said Ella’s voice through the radio. The Jaegers were aligning with each other, keeping the communication up between them even if they lost contact with Control.

“Spindle Imp coming online,” Belle replied, retuning the radio sensors.

_“Red Cricket coming online.”_

_“Finding Neverland coming online.”_ Gold would admit to being glad that Tink seemed to be in charge of comms for the New Zealand Jaeger; he didn’t think they’d survive a slanging match over the radio.

There was a loud blast of Elvis Presley’s _Suspicious Minds_ across the comms and Gold raised an eyebrow at Belle, who was smiling.

“Nani and Lilo,” she said. “They always listen to Elvis in the Jaeger. They say it helps them get into the drift.”

_“Stitch coming online. All right people, let’s kick some Kaiju ass!”_

X

No fight was ever the same, and Gold remembered every single fight that he’d ever been in. He was remembering them now as _Spindle Imp_ , _Sea Devil_ and _Red Cricket_ took it in turns to pummel the massive Kaiju nicknamed _Whiplash_ as it inched ever closer to the Shatterdome. _Finding Neverland_ and _Stitch_ had almost reached the breach, but the other Kaiju, _Hammerhead_ , had obviously realised what they were about to do and had turned back on itself to go and defend its homeworld. Over the Shatterdome Control radio stream, Gold could hear Mal and the other Operations techs arguing about whether to send _Red Cricket_ back out to assist them or to keep the Hoppers here, where they would be more effective against _Whiplash_ ’s deadly tail.

 _"Guys we've got a problem!"_ Nani's voice burst into life over the radio. _"Hammerhead's got some kind of natural energy source, it just fired an EM pulse and took all Neverland's digital circuitry offline. Jones and Tink are sitting ducks!"_

Gold heard Mal swearing violently in the background of the Control radio stream. 

 _"We're just performing evasive manoeuvres now in case we get the same treatment,"_ Nani continued _. "What else can we do?"_

Belle looked over at Gold. 

 _"Can you get Neverland back online from the Shatterdome?"_ Ella asked over the radio, before giving a grunt of frustration as she and Ursula landed a hefty haymaker to the side of _Whiplash_ 's head. 

 _"We can start trying to bring the systems back remotely,"_ Graham said, _"but it'll take hours to bring it back fully."_

" _Spindle_ to Control," Gold said sharply to get their attention. 

_"Go ahead, Gold."_

"Mal, _Spindle_ 's a Mark Three. All our circuitry is analogue. The EM won't affect us."

There was a long pause. 

 _"No,"_ Mal said eventually. _"No, I need you here defending the Shatterdome."_

 _"There are already two more of us here,"_ Ruby Hopper's voice yelled above the roar of _Red Cricket_ 's jets as it swooped above them, plasma cannons firing into _Whiplash_ 's tail. _"We can handle this bastard. If Neverland can't get that warhead into the breach then we're all done for anyway."_

 _"We can handle things out here, Mal,"_ Ella said from _Sea Devil_. _"Trust us."_

 _"I always do, that's the problem,"_ Mal grumbled. _"Fine,"_ she added. " _Spindle, head out to the breach, but you'll have to run. They don't have much time out there. The breach is going to close soon."_

Gold's ankle was already beginning to ache despite the bracing built into the drive suit and the harness taking some of his weight, and he knew it would be screaming by the time he reached the breach, but this was something that had to be done. 

"We're running. Good luck Ella, Ruby."

The other Jaegers echoed the sentiment and _Spindle Imp_ disengaged from the combat, picking up speed as it began to run out into the open ocean, hydraulics whining under the strain. Inside the cockpit, the rollers were whirring. 

"I can't believe we're going to save Killian's skin," Belle said. "Well, I can, because we're all in this together, but after everything I'm so tempted to leave him there."

"You wouldn't want to leave Tink, though, would you?" Gold pointed out. "Besides, like I said back in the hangar, these things always come back around."

They fell into silence as they continued to run. Gold hadn't run this far in a very long time, especially not in a Jaeger, and he could feel the sweat pouring down his back beneath the drive suit, but the harness compelled him to keep moving forward, his connection with Belle propelling him on as she kept surging ahead. 

"Diving," Belle announced as she checked the airtight seals and the water level closed over the top of _Spindle's_ head. "Control, we're underwater heading for the breach site." It was harder to run underwater and their pace slowed to a lumbering jog. Through the murky waters in front of them, Gold could see the glow of the open breach, and the dark shapes of _Hammerhead_ and _Stitch_ moving around it. _Neverland_ was still several metres away, stood stock still and completely dark, the warhead still strapped to its back. 

"How's it going on bringing _Neverland_ back online?" Belle asked Graham.

 _"Not great."_ Graham sighed. " _The circuitry's fried. We'll need to get it back to the Dome. I can get the comms back up but that's about it."_

"What about emergency escape?" Gold asked.

_"That's mechanical, no circuitry. That'll still work."_

"Get the comms back up," Gold said. "That'll be enough."

 _"Have you got some kind of crazy plan that might get you killed?"_ Mal asked plainly over the Control stream. 

Gold glanced over at Belle. She knew what he was planning over the neural bridge, and she gave him a calm nod of approval.

"Yes Mal, yes we have."

 _"What are you going to do?"_ Mal asked. She sounded pained, but resigned to the fact that she knew Gold, and ultimately she knew that his ideas usually paid off. 

"Well, I'm working on the principle that if we get through this then we won't need _Neverland_ again."

With all their digital systems offline, so too would the mechanisms that would release the warhead be unavailable. _Neverland_ had a bomb strapped to its back that it had no way of shifting or detonating. They would have to do it remotely, and Gold knew just how to make it work. 

 _"You crazy bugger,"_ Mal said, but there was a fondness in her voice. _"Go on, save the world."_

 _"It's coming your way, Spindle!"_ Nani warned over the comms. 

" _Stitch_ , shut down all your systems but stay in alignment," Gold said. 

 _"Have you taken leave of your senses?"_ Nani asked indignantly. 

"Kaiju don't attack dead Jaegers," Belle said. "Stay in reserve for a surprise attack."

 _"All right."_ Nani didn't sound at all sure about the plan. 

" _Devil, Cricket,_ you ok back there?" Gold asked.

 _"We've diverted it away from the Shatterdome but it's about to make land. The city's gone into the bunkers. It's badly wounded though, we've got the upper hand but Cricket's lost her jets."_ Ella's voice was clipped and strained as she and Ursula continued to pummel the Kaiju to slow its progress towards the Hong Kong coast. _"Get that breach closed before another one comes along!"_

In front of them, the Kaiju was heading straight for them. For a moment, reality and memory blended together in Gold's mind as he saw all the other times he'd faced down a charging Kaiju. 

 _"Cricket's down!"_ someone screamed over the radio, he couldn't tell who. _"We've lost comms with them!"_

 _Stitch_ had gone all but dark, lying in wait. Gold focussed only on the charging beast, letting the radio chatter drift past him as easily as the memories did. 

"Gold," Belle said, a warning tone in her voice. "Gold it's too loud."

If the chatter was going to stop her concentrating, then they needed to get rid of it. Their combined focus needed to be knife sharp when the Kaiju hit. 

"Cut comms," he said simply. 

"What?"

He switched off the radio connection for her. 

"They can tell we're still online back at base. They can live without shouting at us for a while."

Belle nodded her thanks and _Spindle_ braced for impact as the Kaiju swung its huge head. They were thrown across the ocean floor, but dug their feet in and came to a stop, whirling around for a counter attack, the blades on _Spindle's_ arms flying out and piercing the Kaiju's thick hide. Dark blue blood began to pump out. Belle's face was a mask of concentration as they pulled back for a second swing, grabbing onto the Kaiju's arm and pulling as they sliced, dismembering it completely. 

"Good job," Gold encouraged. "Think you can handle comms again?"

Belle nodded, mentally preparing herself for the rush of voices in her ears again, and Gold switched the radio link back on. 

 _"Gold! You can't just cut comms like that!"_ Mal sounded as if she was about to explode. 

"How's _Cricket_?" Gold asked, ignoring her admonishing and stabbing the Kaiju again. 

_"Life signs but still no comms. The Jaeger's dead as a dodo though. Whiplash has made land but Devil's pretty much killed it. Are you doing... WATCH OUT!"_

The light from the breach was pulsing, Gold could see it out of the corner of his eye as they continued to grapple with _Hammerhead_. Another Kaiju was about to come through. 

Behind it, _Stitch_ burst back into life and threw itself towards the new Kaiju, knocking it down onto the ocean floor and pinning it there. 

 _"Some firepower would be really useful round about now guys!"_ Nani yelled over the radio, and _Spindle Imp_ disengaged one hand from its own fight to arm the plasma cannons and send a white hot blast of energy down towards the newly arrived Kaiju, missing _Stitch's_ cockpit by inches. It wouldn't be enough to kill the thing by any manner or means, but at least it would slow it down for a while. 

_"Thanks!"_

The fight continued on the ocean bed, each Jaeger sparring with its own Kaiju. 

"It's got to be weakening," Belle panted as they slashed at _Hammerhead's_ neck. "It's lost so much blood I can barely see through it."

" _Stitch_ , can you hold out on that one?" Gold asked.

_"Yeah, we're good."_

There was never any grace or beauty in a Jaeger fight but the one going on by the breach between _Stitch_ and the new Kaiju was probably one of the ugliest combats that Gold had ever seen, like two drunkards brawling on an insalubrious pub floor. He didn't like their proximity to the still open breach; what if another Kaiju came straight up virtually on top of them?

It all happened very quickly after that. As Belle and Gold finally succeeded in separating their Kaiju's head from its body, so _Stitch_ and the Pelekai sisters rolled over the edge of the breach still locked in the vice like grip of the other monster. 

Belle screamed as the breach began to groan closed after them.

 _"Spindle!"_ Graham was yelling through the radio. _"Spindle, whatever you're going to do, do it really fucking fast!"_

"Nani, are you still there?" Gold yelped. The response was crackling but still there. 

_"We're here. Don't know for how much longer. This place is..."_

_"Weird,"_ Lilo rejoined firmly. 

"Disengage and get ready to eject on my mark, we're going to open the breach again. Graham, are _Neverland's_ comms back online yet?"

_"Negative."_

"Great, how am I going to tell them to get out of there because I want to use their Jaeger as a nuclear hand grenade?" Gold snapped. _Spindle_ grabbed the fallen body of _Hammerhead_ and they began to drag it towards the closing breach. Gold's ankle felt like it was on fire and he dreaded to see the state of the swelling once he got his drive suit off, but he pushed on through the pain, gritting his teeth. A glance over at Belle told him that she too was feeling his agony. 

 _Sorry_ , he mouthed to her.

 _"Morse!"_ yelled Ella over comms. 

"What?"

_"Just use Morse! You only need four letters: EVAC. Smack them on the head in Morse code! Control, we've killed Whiplash but we're nearly done ourselves; we're coming back in."_

Gold looked over at Belle, who shrugged as much as her harness would allow. "Let's do it. Saving Killian’s life by smacking him in the head. I love irony."

They made their way across the ocean floor towards _Finding Neverland_. The Mark Five Jaeger's design meant that it had no naked-eye visuals, no glass in the cockpit at all. They relied entirely on displays and had no idea what was going on around them. 

 _Spindle's_ free hand clenched into a fist and smacked against the side of _Neverland's_ cockpit, spelling out the letters E V A C in crude morse code, and they took a step back. 

"Did it work?" Belle murmured. 

"Only one way to find out." All they could do was wait, but every moment that they waited brought Nani and Lilo further and further towards the point of no return, when _Stitch's_ systems would fail and they'd be unable to leave the breach at all. 

A pressurised escape pod shot out of the top of _Neverland's_ cockpit. There was no way of telling whose it was. Gold began to countdown from ten. You always had to wait ten seconds before ejecting the second pod in case you hit the first. 

He'd reached fifteen and was about to grab _Neverland_ , giving the second pilot up for lost, when the other pod flew out after the first. The Jaeger was deserted and its pilots safe. Now all they had to do was get that bomb into the breach and pray that they could all get out again in time. 

There was no way of getting the warhead off _Neverland's_ back; the Jaegers weren't designed for anything requiring any kind of dexterity. They would have to take the whole machine with them. 

 _"We've got choppers incoming,"_ Graham said over the radio. _"Good luck, Spindle."_

The progress towards the breach was slow and painful, the faintest crackling strains of _Jailhouse Rock_ over comms the only thing telling them that _Stitch_ was still saveable. 

"Nearly there," Belle said. Her voice was calm and quiet, and so very determined that it gave Gold the encouragement he needed. She was just as exhausted as he was; he could tell from where he touched her mind. This was their first drop in the Jaeger together and yet they were fighting in perfect unison as if they'd done it for years. Nevertheless, the lack of experience was taking its toll on Belle, and his long hiatus from piloting had done him no favours. The real thing wasn't the same as a simulator. A computer programme couldn't prepare you for the sheer level of mental and physical fatigue that just moving the giant mechs caused, let alone engaging in complex combat arrangements with them. 

As they reached the breach, it began to open again, disguised as they were behind _Hammerhead's_ corpse. Lugging _Neverland_ the rest of the way, they stood on the precipice. Gold's face plate was misting up with his breath; he squinted through it down into the abyss.

" _Stitch_ , you still there?"

_"We're here."_

"Eject now, the breach is open."

 _Spindle_ took half a step back to allow the pods to fly up past them. Once both were safe and sound, they leaned over the edge again. Far below them, they could see the Kaiju moving around in a swarm. 

"Here goes nothing," Gold said. 

With a groan of effort, _Spindle_ tossed _Neverland_ and the Kaiju corpse into the breach together, and activated the plasma cannon. Realisation struck Gold in an icy wave.

"Belle, you've got to aim," he said. She looked up at him, her eyes wide through her face plate, but where his was condensing and obscuring his vision, hers was clear. She'd be able to see what she was shooting at. She gave a nod and together they aimed the cannon, seeing through Belle's unclouded eyes. 

The cannon fired and the warhead detonated. As the breach began to close, Gold felt the shockwave pulse up through the water, sending _Spindle_ flying backwards. 

Then everything went black. 

X

Belle felt the moment that Gold's mind left hers, and she felt the same chilling terror that she'd felt by proxy when Bae's mind had left his. 

 _"Belle, eject!"_ Mal was yelling in her ear. _"Belle! Eject!"_

She looked over at Gold, but his faceplate was too misted for her to see anything. He couldn't be dead; he couldn't be. He was just stunned from the shockwave throwing them back before they managed to get out of its path. 

 _"Belle! Eject!"_ In the background of the control radio stream, Belle could hear celebrations breaking out. They'd done it, the breach was closed, but at what cost?

 _"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"_ Mal yelled to the carousers away from the mic, but Belle still picked it up. _"Belle, you've got to eject, the blast destabilised Spindle's own reactor, she might blow any second."_

"Not without Gold!" Belle yelled back. 

_"Belle, we've got life signs, we'll eject him remotely, but you're still in control of your own harness and you have to get out of there yourself!"_

Belle looked around frantically at the red warning signs screaming at them from every angle in the cockpit. The systems had all been knocked offline. 

"No, I'll do it."

_"Belle!"_

"The remote trigger won't work, we're all offline! I'm doing it myself!"

Ignoring Mal's continued protests, Belle unhooked herself from her harness and made her way over to Gold, hanging limp over the rollers, the harness supporting his entire frame. 

"Don't be dead," she whispered, taking his helmet in both hands and trying to wipe away the mist before remembering that it was on the inside and her efforts were pointless. "Please don't be dead. We know everything about each other but there's still so much to learn."

This wasn't getting Gold out of the Jaeger. She checked over the harness to make sure he would stay secure, then hit the quick release button, diving out of the way as the harness swung him up into the pod, sealed, and fired up out of the top airlock hatch. 

 _"Belle, the reactor's about to overload!"_ Mal yelled through comms. Knowing that Gold was on his way to safety, Belle wasted no time in getting back into her own harness and activating the quick release. 

The g-force nearly made her black out, but at least the pod was dynamically pressurised and she wouldn't get the bends as she shot up through the ocean. Below her, she felt the rumble of _Spindle's_ core destabilising and finally caving in. 

Idly she wondered how Gold would feel about the loss of his beloved Jaeger, but considering they weren't going to need to pilot it any more, she thought that he would bear it fairly well. 

As she broke the surface, the minute she had to wait for the pod to unlock was agonising, and as soon as she could open it, she burst out, unclipping her helmet and gasping in fresh air. She hadn't realised just how claustrophobic the cockpits and pods were until now. She looked around. Tink and Killian had also opened their pods; they looked to be ok. Nani and Lilo were out, hugging each other in the water and generally jubilating that they'd survived a trip into the breach and it was all over now. 

Gold's pod was still closed. 

The helicopters were coming in, but Belle ignored the throbbing sound above her and dived into the water, swimming as fast as her aching limbs could take her over to Gold's pod and clambering up onto it, pulling at the cover. 

"Goddammit Gold you are not allowed to die!" she screamed. "You've just saved us all, you don't get to do the heroic martyr thing and leave me behind, that's not fair!"

She pulled his helmet off. Severed from _Spindle's_ comms, she had no way of asking control if they had any life signs from him, and she couldn't feel a pulse through the bulk of his drive suit. 

"GOLD!" she yelled, "WAKE UP!"

There was nothing for a long time, and then there was a weak, spluttering cough, and Gold's eyes fluttered open. 

"And there was I, saying I wouldn't get on your bad side," he mumbled. He blinked on finding Belle's face quite so close to his. "Did it work or are we dead?"

Belle just flung her arms around him, sobbing fat tears of relief into his neck until the helicopter crew pulled her away to get her and Gold into the chopper. Gold grimaced as the crew helped him in. 

"I think all my ribs are broken," he grumbled. "In fact I think everything is broken."

Belle grinned. He was going to be all right. 

As the choppers flew onwards, back towards the Shatterdome, she felt Gold's hand reach for hers, and she knew that everything was going to be all right.

X

The mood of celebration throughout the Shatterdome, although heartfelt, was still somewhat subdued. Although the Kaiju war had been won, no-one could forget the losses that had been suffered in its name, and that might still be suffered. Ruby and Archie had been rescued from the wreckage of their Jaeger; they were stable for the moment but their injuries were severe, to the extent of the hospital putting Ruby into a medical coma. Belle had been sitting in the control room for most of the evening, waiting for the slightest bit of news about her friend. 

There was a soft yip at her feet and she looked down to see Chip sitting there, looking up at her expectantly waiting for a scratch behind the ears, which Belle was all to happy to provide. 

"You're missing the party."

She turned to see Gold leaning in the doorway. His ankle was in a heavy duty brace and she knew that beneath his shirt his chest was bruised livid purple where his ribs were broken, but he was here, alive and with her. 

"Nani and Lilo have started a conga line; it's going to stretch all the way around the base soon."

He limped over to her and settled himself in Mal's command chair at the station beside her. 

"We made a good team, you and I," he said, handing over the bottle of whisky he'd hidden up his jumper. "Pinched it from Mal's private stash. It's complete rotgut of course, but I didn't really have time to pack any of the good stuff when I left Scotland." 

Belle reached over and took a swig straight from the bottle. She grimaced a little, then smiled.

"It's not as bad as the vodka the Russian teams used to drink whilst they were here," she said. "Now that could strip paint."

She looked out over the Jaeger bays; _Sea Devil_ was the only one in place, looking very much the worse for wear. All the others had been lost. "It seems strange, for me it's almost over before it's begun. My first drop out of the Shatterdome, and it was my last. I'm grateful for that. I don't want to have to go through it again, ever. But still... You're right. We made a good team."

Gold nodded, looking thoughtful. 

"You know..." He paused. "Just because it's all over, doesn't mean we have to stop being a team."

Belle smiled. 

"I'd like that," she said softly, reaching across the console for his hand. Gold squeezed her fingers and raised the bottle of whisky in a toast. 

"To us. The beginning of a wonderful partnership."

Belle echoed his toast. "To us."

Perhaps it was the whisky emboldening her, but something made her lean across and press her lips against his. He resisted at first, giving a little squeak of protest, but then relaxed into the kiss, one rough hand coming up to touch her cheek. 

At the entrance to the control room, Mal, in search of her stolen whisky, smiled and turned on her heel, waving her fingers to get Chip to follow her and leave the two in peace. It was true what they said, that sometimes the most beautiful things can come of adversity. Belle and Gold had both lost so much in this war, but at least they had found each other. 

She looked over her shoulder fondly. They were drift compatible. They'd be just fine. 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
